Childish Reminisces
by Blithe Novelties
Summary: Laughter caught in her throat as she looked back at the entries; all the things that had seemed magical or had once held any form of significance were simply nonsensical to her now. Human!Stuck AU


**AN: To clear away any confusion, in this Human!Stuck AU, the trolls's names are nicknames/codenames they have given each other, hence why Nepeta is first introduced as, and continuously called Nelly throughout the fic. I would have called her "Nelly" once, just to state that Nepeta was her nickname, but decided instead to call her Nelly, seeing as how in this story her name of "Nepeta" is supposed to represent part of her childhood.**

**As for what "the incident" is, that is entirely up to you.**

**MS Paint Adventures/Homestuck: Andrew Hussie**

**The idea of "Nelly" being Nepeta's AU Human!Stuck name belongs to both myself and a friend, and to whomever also decides/decided to use it as such.**

MSPA: HS: Childish Reminisces:

Her fingers trailed along the worn olive fabric of a present she had received for her twelfth birthday; the oversized coat had often swallowed her frame, brushing against the ground whenever she had worn it. Even now, as Nelly Leijon-or Nepeta, as she was once known by her peers because of her intense fondness of cats-kneeled at the foot of her bed, clutching it in her petite hands, it covered her legs completely, pooling out to either side, forming green fleece puddles on the hard wooded oak floor.

An opened wooden chest stood at the end of her bed, revealing a bottom littered with half finished comics and old journals that Nelly couldn't recall ever writing in, but the words that filled the pages were done in her own hand, so she must have had written in them some time or another. Laughter caught in her throat as she looked back at the entries; all the things that had seemed magical or had once held any form of significance were simply nonsensical to her now.

_April 17, 2008_

_Dear Diary,_

_Karkitty looked at me today-well, he could have been glancing over my shoulder since Terezi was behind me, but he still looked my way!_

_April 19, 2008_

_Dear Diary_

_Equius tells me it's ridiculous to use my Hello Kitty backpack, but it's too cute for me not to! He says I need to start growing up, but I think he's really just a grumpy puss who needs to learn how to have fun. That's okay though, he's still my bestest friend!_

_May 3, 2008..._

In all of her diaries, Nelly noted that she had called all of the neighborhood kids by the nicknames they had given each other, with the exceptions being Karkat, Vriska, and Eridan, as she used cat puns with theirs-"Karkitty", "Vriskers", and "Mr. Ampurra", respectively-and now, rereading them, the names brought a bittersweet taste to her mouth; she hadn't written nor spoken those names in quite a long time and seeing them on paper was foreign to her green eyes, as if she were trying to decipher a story written in a language that she didn't understand.

It was only one year ago when her twelve year old self had written those words, yet, cliche as it was, it didn't seem possible at all. She couldn't have been happy only last year, could she? Her writing _was _cramped and sometimes illegible at times, so perhaps the girl had simply misread the date, but it'd be much better if she didn't try to fool herself into believing her own lies, as the thirteen year old knew that it truly was only a year ago when everything started going downhill for her and her friends...when several of them had lost their lives because of what the survivors had dubbed _the incident._

Tucking a small lock of hair behind one of her ears, she continued searching through the other things that had accumulated in her chest over time: ratty old stuffed toys, more journals, an opened bag of catnip meant for Pounce before the poor thing had gotten run over by a car, drawings of all sorts, and so forth. With each item Nepeta pulled from the mess, more and more memories were unlocked from whichever part of her brain they were taking refuge in; she found herself, with a tear streaked face, wishing that everything would go back to the way it was before.

It was only when the Leijon girl was about to begin storing everything away again, to lay untouched for another year, or perhaps more, that she spotted it, the blue fabric looking out of place amongst crumpled sheets of yellowing paper. An odd feeling struck her; numbness mingling with the same bitter sweetness from earlier; with hands trembling, she reached for her old hat, sewn in the likeness of a kitten's face. She'd all but forgotten about the thing, with its crooked ears and clumsily stitched mouth, but once, she had never gone anywhere without it perched atop her dark curls.

Equius said that wearing it was childish too. Often times, she had merely stuck her tongue out at him when he had said so, before stifling a giggle at her friend's flustered reaction. As she played with the unraveling strings that kept an ear from falling off, Nelly debated whether or not she should toss it out; there surely was no use in keeping it or any of the other junk that only took up space nowadays. What he would say if he were still here_-"about time you grew up"_?

But, perhaps...her eyes darted down ward, perhaps she should just keep the hat and her coat, if there ever came a day when she decided to stop being Nelly and become Nepeta once more, if only to be a child again, if only...if only for a little while...


End file.
